Having been laid up with Covid last week, I went to my Pilates class this morning, after a two week break. It’s amazing how much difference it makes if you miss a week. Now I’m achy from Pilates rather than Covid.
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Dilemma (my life!)
Have been invited to dinner with the King*.
Well, sort of. The Royal Warrant holders annual banquet, in London. Black tie = extra luggage.
Dilemma is that I have a concert ticket (Max Richter + orchestra) in Bristol that night and have ticket, and booked transport and accommodation. (I am working in London the day before and Bristol/Wells the day after).
Professionally I should go to the banquet. And the wines will be beyond excellent.
So, ‘pose un lapin’ to the King*, or trash the concert? Either way I get a story, but which?
Help me out!
*not guaranteed. But he was there last time I did this, although he was ‘only’ the PoW at the time. There will be one of them there for sure. I am not a royalist, nor am I a republican.
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King trumps Max.
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I saw Max Richter last year and it was a bit, well…dull
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I’ve only spoken with Charles once. I said hello and he said ‘I don’t know why you’ve come to see me when you could be in the pub’. He had a point. I’d go with Max Richter as it’s all booked.
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No adaptive CC here on the two cars with CC, not something I would want. Can you turn off the adaptive bit?
My estate is 20 mph (plus outside local schools etc) and I’ve no issues with being able to stick to the limit with diesel or petrol. The diesel is automatic and pulls up the steep hill on the way to the main road at just over 1000rpm.
The hill is steep enough that it was always a challenge to get my Raleigh Chopper to the top! 
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Unfortunately not as I definitely would. I just don’t like it when it slows you down incorrectly, often when a car way in front slows to turn left and would be well out of your way by the time you got to that point on the road. The more ‘inteeligent’ systems to me just make the drive boring and the driver lazier as they don’t need to be as aware of surroundings. I feel the same with variable /average speed cameras and so forth.
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Max. You have everything booked, and yer man might not even be there.
You’ll see him when you get the knighthood.
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We have adaptive CC in our current car and love it. Ours is hassle free and rather intelligent, we do a lot of express way driving at a constant 110km per hour. We set ours at 117km and have never been booked or had any problems. Also if we dropped into economy mode the big 3 lt diesel drinks less than 6lt per 100kms.
We’ve had adaptive CC in our last 3 cars and never had an issues.
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I’d see Max but I’m a from the colonies so my view mightn’t be of any value. 
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That’s nearly 40mpg! Is that correct?
Yes and for a big SUV it’s great economy I wouldn’t get that without CC. It’s smoother than your foot on the peddle and it’s a constant speed. Obviously it slows down if there’s some one in front of you.
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One chance to meet and experience and make up your own mind……the musician can be booked again?
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Go with the King, Rod. And flog the concert tickets to someone less eminent than yourself if you can.
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I’d go King without a thought, but I’m no great MR fan - a couple of goodies, one of those being the Sleep Remixes album, the other his Vivaldi.
Voices was sheer tedium…at least Charles may crack a joke or two.
And great wine? No hesitation!
If it was Philip Glass, however…
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This is not helping!
Despite that you are all helping!! Thank you!
For colour/background:
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meeting the King will involve a briefing, a handshake, and a “don’t talk unless he asks you a question.” I have been there before. Plus he is an old man with cancer, who will have not long returned from a (presumably exhausting) trip to Australia. So it will - most likely - be someone else (although I have already ‘met’ Charles, so that doesn’t bother me). Genuinely I’d rather have a conversation with Anne, but obviously you can’t choose, and a ‘conversation’ with any of them is unlikely.
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I really like Max Richter’s music. Although his new album is not Memoryhouse (which I adore), I do really like it. He has subsequently announced a concert in Paris, but the date does not work for me.
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The invite says “Black Tie. White Tie optional”. Last time it was white tie (only) which meant hiring stuff - with an almost unimaginable difficulty of putting-on, starchiness, and just weird. Had it been that again, it would have been a definite ‘no’ from me from a time perspective, if nothing else.
Still undecided. I can cancel the hotel. But not the concert ticket, and probably not the train.
But this is the absolute zenith of the definition of a first world problem, n’est ce pas…
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Concerts are common, I’d do the banquet, just for the experience and drama.
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I’d still do the King. You can choose to go to a concert another time but you may not get another chance to do the Royal Warrant Holders annual banquet.
I did get to go to that banquet myself once. It was about 40 years ago and a warrant holder invited me to join a table they paid for. To be honest I don’t remember that much about it. I think we had a minor royal and I wore black tie. Probably I would appreciate it more now!
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Fawning to a privileged anachronism or a night of great music? There really is no contest.
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Was that William running around at age 2?